Mob Scooter Doing 86mph and riding it on it side Crazy in Morocco

No matter what he does, this poor guy can’t seem to keep his unruly scooter from getting the best of him. Sometimes, everything just sucks. Watch!

The Dodge Tomahawk was one of the coolest concepts ever, and I’m still a little pissed Ma Mopar never brought it to production. Sure, the Viper-powered uber-bike would have reduced most of the folks brave—or foolish—enough to ride it to bloody clumps of freeway hamburger. But damn, what a sexy beast! And while the idea of a company making a knock-off is kind of appealing, when I first saw the "Tron Bike," I just thought; "No. No. Not like this. Jesus, No." Not only is the powerplant a measly 150CCs, but this piece of garbage looks like it’s made out of siding scraps and painted with hair dye from Hot Topic. And am I the only one that thinks that cheap-ass mesh looks like leopard print? Yuck. Five more pics after the jump. ATV Discounter via Autoblog

Since reading Rob’s post about parking the SUV in the garage and buying a scooter for your daily commute, I’ve discovered a magazine that serves the two-wheeled scooter community, Scoot! The issue I picked up at my local Barnes and Noble says #45, but up until last week, I’d never seen a copy.

The blurb on the Scoot! website encapsulates the magazine as "North America’s #1 Magazine for vintage and modern motorscooters. Scoot! is an 80-page full-color, bi-monthly magazine dedicated to the appreciation of vintage and modern motorscooters." Now, when I think of scooters, I have to admit I still imagine Audrey Hepburn holding tightly to Gregory Peck in Roman Holiday. But there’s more to the scooter scene than midnight movies at the local art house theater.

The current April/May issue has a comprehensive 28-page scooter buyers guide, and as someone who has long resisted the urge to tempt fate by using two wheels instead of four, I must admit there are some really great looking scooters available. Some have engines as large as 650cc—big enough to carry someone upwards of 200lbs—and in this era of $5.00/gallon gas, the fuel economy makes them even more attractive. But what really caught my eye was this Geico "caveman" ad on page two of the buyer’s guide. Check out Scoot!

Actually, their argument is similar to the one I made last month. If you have a gas guzzling truck or SUV and are freaking out, be sure to do the math before making any rash decisions. And if you need a cheap way to get around for short trips and errands, scooters are cool. Fox Business.

As we saw today with Ben’s post, building up little 50 cc scooters is big business in Japan. I guess that in a country of 127 million people, there isn’t a lot of space for cars. John wrote a little while ago about the CarDomain office manager’s new Honda Ruckus, and it looks like over in Germany they’re already modding them. In Japan, the kids are taking it one step further by building low-slung scooter machines decked out with bodywork, chrome, neon and LCDs! I just can’t believe these little machines would even clear a pebble, let alone a speed bump or a curb into a parking lot. But with the rising price of gas, I think we’ll be seeing more and more scooters popping up on local streets–and where there’s popularity, as with any vehicle, aftermarket options are sure to follow.

In my home town of Victoria, a company called Scooter Underground hasn’t been able to keep much stock in its store. People are apparently taken by these little commuter machines and are snapping them up as the price of gas climbs. One of the scooters they sell actually looks like a miniature motorbike. Now, all that’s left to do is come up with a cool buzzword for these tiny rides. Scooter-tuners?

Last time I posted I said that I wasnt sure if I thought these were cool or not. Since then I’ve been starting to dig them. Still very odd, but maybe that’s why I like them. It takes equal parts balls and stupidity to actually show up somewhere riding one of these things. More pics after the jump (and you can’t tell me the exhaust in the second to last pic isn’t badass).

Guy, our office manager, just picked up a Honda Ruckus. And while I’m generally not a fan of scooters—zero power, no noise to alert all the drivers trying to kill you—I think this is probably the coolest looking one on the market. After a few minutes of standing and looking, I was goaded into taking it for a spin. Since the last powered two-wheeler I rode was a Suzuki TL1000R—which sports an engine 20 times larger than the little Honda—I wasn’t floored by the speed. But I did manage to coax it to 40MPH, and was pretty impressed with how the suspension handled Seattle’s crappy roads. Overall, the little ride around the block just made me want to get another motorbike. Sorry, Mom!